django form resubmitted upon refresh

Question

After I submit the form for the first time and then refresh the form it gets resubmitted and and I don't want that.

Here's my form in template :

<form action = "" method = "POST"> {% csrf_token %}
    {{ form.as_p }}
    <input type = "submit" value = "Shout!"/>
</form>

How can I fix this ?

Here's my views:

def index(request):
    shouts = Shout.objects.all()

    if request.method == "POST":
        form = GuestBookForm(request.POST)
        if form.is_valid():
            cd = form.cleaned_data
            shout = Shout(author = cd['author'], message = cd['message'])
            shout.save()
            form = GuestBookForm()
    else:
        form = GuestBookForm()

    return render_to_response('guestbook/index.html', {'shouts' : shouts,
                                             'form' : form },
                              context_instance = RequestContext(request))

Answer 1

My guess is that this is a problem in your view.

After successful submission and processing of a web form, you need to use a return HttpResponseRedirect, even if you are only redirecting to the same view. Otherwise, certain browsers (I'm pretty sure FireFox does this) will end up submitting the form twice.

Here's an example of how to handle this...

def some_view(request):
  if request.method == "POST":
    form = some_form(request.POST)
    if form.is_valid():
      # do processing
      # save model, etc.
      return HttpResponseRedirect("/some/url/")
  return render_to_response("normal/template.html", {"form":form}, context_instance=RequestContext(request))

Given your recently added view above...

def index(request):
    shouts = Shout.objects.all()

    if request.method == "POST":
        form = GuestBookForm(request.POST)
        if form.is_valid():
            cd = form.cleaned_data
            shout = Shout(author = cd['author'], message = cd['message'])
            shout.save()

            # Redirect to THIS view, assuming it lives in 'some app'
            return HttpResponseRedirect(reverse("some_app.views.index"))
    else:
        form = GuestBookForm()

    return render_to_response('guestbook/index.html', {'shouts' : shouts,
                                         'form' : form },
                          context_instance = RequestContext(request))

That will use reverse to redirect to this same view (if thats what you are trying to do)